Hamas softens stance on truce terms as pressure mounts for Gaza ceasefire

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy flies to Israel to brief Benjamin Netanyahu after talks in Doha with Qatar’s Prime Minister

A Palestinian woman inspects her family's destroyed house following an Israeli air strike on Deir Al Balah refugee camp in central Gaza on Wednesday. EPA

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Hamas has softened its stance on some of its core conditions for a ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, following an intensified push by mediators to reach a deal, sources close to the negotiations told The National on Saturday.

The sources said the latest proposals to pause the war provide for a 60-day truce during which Hamas will stagger the release of the remaining Israeli and other hostages it has held since October 2023, when its fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, kidnapping another 250 and triggering the 15-month-old Gaza war.

US President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Israel on Saturday to brief Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the state of negotiations.

Mr Witkoff flew to Israel a day after meeting Qatar's chief negotiator, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, to discuss "the latest developments in the region, especially the efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip", the Qatari Foreign Ministry said.

He was scheduled to meet Mr Netanyahu later on Saturday.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office on Saturday confirmed that Mr Netanyahu had ordered the head of Mossad and the Shin Bet intelligence agencies, as well as political adviser Ofir Falk, to go to Doha to help advance a possible deal for hostages.

US President Joe Biden, who leaves office later this month, said on Thursday that there had been "real progress" in the Gaza talks, while Mr Trump has repeatedly warned Hamas that there will be "hell to pay" if it does not free the remaining captives before his January 20 inauguration.

Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza are believed to be holding about 100 hostages. The Israeli military says about 40 of them have died in captivity, but the sources say fewer than that have actually perished.

They said Hamas will free three hostages every week in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. It wants Israeli forces to redeploy outside urban centres during the release.

However, Hamas is refusing to meet Israel's demand for a list of all the hostages before the exchange begins. Israel also remains opposed to the release of several high-profile Palestinians sentenced to long terms on security-related charges, according to the sources.

Hamas has already agreed to an Israeli demand that the prisoners and their families leave the Palestinian territories and live in exile abroad upon their release.

The group is also now willing to accept verbal guarantees from the mediators – the United States, Qatar and Egypt – as well as Turkey that Israel will continue negotiations for a permanent ceasefire after the expiry of the proposed truce. It had previously demanded written guarantees.

Hamas has also agreed to put off resolving remaining differences with Israel to the second phase of the deal that commences at the expiry of the 60-day truce.

One of these is Israel's insistence on maintaining buffer zones in the eastern and northern fringes of Gaza, something that Hamas is said by the sources to be ready to tolerate for a time until resolved at a later date.

The latest push for a deal to end the war comes at a time when more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than twice that number injured, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry. The majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been displaced by the war, which has left large swathes of built-up areas reduced to rubble.

The only truce in the Gaza war was in late November 2023, when the guns were silenced for a week. During that truce, Hamas released about 100 hostages in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners.